The gaming industry, casinos, and gambling venues have used gaming machines, such as slot machines, video poker machines, and the like for many years. Slot machines have proven to be very popular with players and profitable for the venue. Generally, the popularity of such machines with players is dependent on the possibility of winning money at the machine and the intrinsic entertainment value of the machine relative to other available gaming options. Players are usually attracted to the most entertaining and exciting machines, which are constructed with features and enhancements to attract frequent play and increase profitability for the operator. Therefore, there is a continuing need for slot machine manufacturers to continuously develop new games and improve gaming enhancements that will attract frequent play through enhanced entertainment value to the player. However, current gaming systems are based on the use of pre-defined sets of cards or displays (e.g., types of fruit, symbols, etc.) that form the content used in the wagering games implemented by the gaming systems. Casinos have been unable use these gaming systems to implement wagering games that are based on the use of variable content, real-time content, or live action content. Additionally, casinos have been unable to exploit an opportunity to enter the exploding fantasy sports market via traditional slot machines or other gaming systems that are designed to create games of intense, skill-based strategy.
As popular as fantasy sports has been over the last decade, there has been a huge void that nobody has been able to fill. Fantasy sports tournaments have never been able to create a process where an unlimited number of people can play without creating a lottery type of effect. A lottery effect is the very undesirable result of having so many fantasy players entered in a tournament that there is no longer enough room to have them play each other in head-to-head matchups. Unfortunately, the solution for tournaments with these types of spacing issues has always been to force the entire field to compete against each other simultaneously. This is never a good thing and is very discouraging for the competitors.
There are only two general formats available on the market for participating in fantasy tournaments. Within each tournament structure there are often different variables, but when they are stripped down to their bare essence, it comes down to two options. One of them creates the aforementioned lottery effect while the other does everything possible to avoid it. The one that avoids the lottery effect creates its own set of problems unique to itself. As far as tournament play is concerned, neither is a viable way for an unlimited number of players to enter without having to play the entire field at the same time. Some of the features of these two tournament paradigms along with some of their limitations are described below.
Format #1—Head-to-Head
Fantasy players are matched up against a single opponent to compete against for a given round. The fantasy player whose athletes score more combined fantasy points are declared the winner and their opponent is declared the loser. The won/lost records of these fantasy players are recorded. The better records receive special recognition. Duplication of athletes is not permitted in these tournaments. Often, leagues are actually built within the tournament structure. Fantasy players are allowed to remain in the tournament for quite some time even if they happen to be performing poorly. There is a selection process in place where fantasy players either bid on or draft athletes. Lineups are submitted from a very limited and well defined pool of athletes. They consist of athletes that a fantasy player has on their roster that they either drafted or bid on.
Head-to-Head Format Limitations
There are limits to the number of fantasy players that can play in these types of tournaments because of spacing issues. In other words, there are a finite number of slots available to allow people to consistently play head-to-head with each other over a relatively short season. When limits are placed on the number of people that can play, it triggers a very bad combination of events if the intent is to offer a monetary prize. The head-to-head format limits the amount of prize money that can be given out. This is because there aren't enough people paying an entry fee to support a large prize money pool. Compounding the problem is the high pricing strategy for entry fees which is often used to compensate for the limited number of fantasy players that are able to compete. This is done to create a larger pool for the prize money, but this strategy prices most fantasy sports enthusiasts out of participating.
Format #2—Lottery Effect
Some tournament formats operate as a lottery style tournament because the format mirrors what a lottery does. For example, millions of people can select the number “3” in a lottery and share that number. But, the number is meaningless unless that number is selected as one of the winning numbers and the other five or six numbers that the lottery player has are also selected as winning numbers. The same thing happens with fantasy sports lottery tournaments. Three million people might have the highest scoring athlete for a given day, week or month, but how many of them have that in combination with the next five or six highest scoring athletes? This is a very unlikely combination to have and is why this style of play mimics a lottery. The lottery effect format requires hundreds, thousands or even an unlimited number of entries to play each other simultaneously. Duplication of athletes is permitted because there aren't enough athletes to go around. This is the only way millions can play each other simultaneously. Tournaments are usually structured so that running point totals of fantasy players are compared on an ongoing basis. The goal is to have the highest running point total possible in the event that hundreds to millions of fantasy players are all competing against each other. Tournament structure always forces fantasy players to compete against the entire field. Sometimes it is for one day and sometimes it is for the whole season and sometimes it is something in between. Cumulative running point total separates the fantasy players rather than a won/lost record like with the head-to-head format. The top cumulative point scorers receive special recognition. Lineups are submitted from the entire pool of available athletes with little to no restrictions.
Lottery Effect Format Limitations
Fantasy players compete against the entire field simultaneously. Tournament format not conducive to charging an entry fee, although some do, because fantasy players are not optimistic they can beat out hundreds to millions of players at the same time for the high score. Generally considered an inferior format to the match play method because it is nothing more than an accumulated points system over a day, week, month or entire season and forces fantasy players to compete against the entire field at the same time.
Not all fantasy tournaments have every feature described in the two formats above. However, all of them though have enough of them in combination with one another to create insurmountable roadblocks for the type of tournament the applicant believes is needed to fill the hole in the industry. The only way around them is to seek non-traditional solutions. Ultimately, the goal is to create a vehicle so that an unlimited number of fantasy players can participate, without having to play the entire field simultaneously. Again, there isn't a single format currently in existence on the market that allows this to happen. The reason for this is that there are several non-obvious features that are required to make this happen.
The primary tournaments that have either been or are currently on the market are described below. In 2004, Payday Sports offered a million dollar prize to the winner of their fantasy football tournament. The entry fee was $3,600. Analysis—The tournament failed because even though the prize money was appropriate and the competitors weren't forced to play the entire field simultaneously, the entry fee was not conducive to attracting the masses.
In 2004, the Million Dollar Fantasy League held a fantasy football tournament that offered a one million dollar grand prize. The entry fee was $2,600. Analysis—This tournament failed for the same reason the Payday sports one did. The prize money was good, they also got it right by not forcing competitors to compete against the entire field, but once again, the entry fee was way too high.
In 2008, Fanball held a million dollar fantasy football tournament where the entry fee was $125. It failed in the second year because they were unable to pay the prize money. This tournament was a much better attempt at creating an entry fee that was conducive to attract the masses, but it still wasn't low enough. Consequently, it fared no better than the others because the price was still way too high for the average player and the tournament format was so structurally flawed they couldn't go any lower. Their primary issue was that they didn't have an understanding of how to create enough space for more fantasy players to enter. This became quite apparent by their use of a league format. Instead of eliminating poor performers to make room for more entries, they allowed them to remain in the tournament. The ramifications for doing it this way (along with some other strategic mistakes) resulted in the fact that they could not go any lower on the entry fee without making all the competitors compete against the entire field simultaneously. The bottom line is that even though Fanball tried entry fees that were significantly lower than previous attempts, their faulty methodology still forced them to keep them too high to attract the masses. More importantly, even if they had been able to attract the masses with their better pricing, they still didn't have a system in place to accommodate that many entries without offering a Lottery Effect format. The Fanball fiasco is one example of why the solutions to create an effective tournament format are not obvious.
FanDuel has been hosting a tournament for two years that they hope will eventually pay the winner one million dollars (in 2012 the winner received $150,000). Their entry fee is either $10 or $109. Analysis—FanDuel is a good illustration of how big money fantasy sports tournaments struggle with trying to avoid the Lottery Effect while at the same time trying to offer a big money grand prize. What they have created is a paradigm that offers two types of qualifying tournaments for a chance to compete in a 24 person tournament that crowns the winner with $150,000. For the $109 qualifier, they limit it to 250 people each week that it is run. For the $10 qualifier they cap it at just over 2,000 entries. The intent is to minimize the Lottery Effect by capping the number of people who can participate, but it is still creates a Lottery Effect when you have to be the best score in a large field to qualify. Moreover, the prize money to the winner is compromised and can never be in the multi-millions of dollars because they are creating caps for the number of people that can enter. The FanDuel format is a good example to illustrate the problem that currently exists. Nobody has been able to determine how to offer the multi-million dollar grand prize without forcing contestants to simultaneously play millions of people. FanDuel clearly is trying to address the issue, but because of their flawed strategies in creating their format, they offer BOTH the Lottery Effect and a less than desirable grand prize in their offering.
The National Fantasy Football Championship Primetime (NFFCP) is offering a $150,000 grand prize for the 2012 NFL™ season. Their entry fee is $1,500. Analysis—The prize money is not in the millions and the entry fee is way too high to attract the masses. The format limits the number of entries, because they haven't developed a tournament format that allows a large number of fantasy players to compete.
The National Fantasy Football Championship Classic (NFFCC) is offering a $75,000 grand prize for the 2012 NFL™ season. Their entry fee is $1,500. Analysis—The prize money is not in the millions and the entry fee is way too high to attract the masses. The format limits the number of entries, because they haven't developed a tournament format that allows a large number of fantasy players to compete.
The Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC) is offering a $200,000 grand prize for the 2012 NFL™ season. Their entry fee is $1,600. Analysis—The prize money is not in the millions and the entry fee is way too high to attract the masses. The format limits the number of entries, because they haven't developed a tournament format that allows a large number of fantasy players to compete.
The World Championship of Fantasy Football (WCFF) is offering a $200,000 grand prize for the 2012 NFL™ season. Their entry fee is $1,575. Analysis—The prize money is not in the millions and the entry fee is way too high to attract the masses. The format limits the number of entries, because they haven't developed a tournament format that allows a large number of fantasy players to compete.